The Aluminum Show *****

At last year’s Fringe, a show called Fuertzabruta appeared out of nowhere and created a huge buzz through its use of artistic, striking imagery, dance music and sheer originality. The Aluminum Show isn’t quite up there with Fuertzabruta’s standard, but it’s not far off it.

A cast of Israeli dancers and performance artists spend an hour bringing various forms of aluminum (tubing, foil sheets, balloons, etc) to life in ever-more original and visually arresting ways.

At first, the stage is covered with giant aluminum tubes. These suddenly inflate and vanish off up to the ceiling, leaving several person-sized tubes alone under the spotlights. Of course, the performers are inside and move and dance, breathing surreal life into the worm-like pieces.

In another striking piece, Warhol-like silver balloons of varying sizes are filled with air and then used to assemble a giant metal mannequin, which looms over the audience before marching off stage.

All the while, techno / rave music pumps out and at times gigantic tubes or sheets of foil are passed out into the audience, turning the whole space into a writhing silver mass.

There is nothing particularly physically impressive about the show, but that’s not what it’s about – it’s all about the imagery and the different interpretations and bizarre uses for normally lifeless bits of foil, strands and fragments of which are blasted into the crowd at the end.

Shows like this take on the feeling of being at a party rather than a performance, and the group pull this off well, meaning everyone’s pumped up and elated as we file out into the by comparison grey and dull Edinburgh evening.